


Seven for a Secret

by StarsInMyDamnEyes



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (it’s supposed to be), AT LEAST. I TRIED TO, Angst, Character Death, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Gen, Geralt Is Old As Fuck, Geralt Typical Angst, Geralt has Feelings but the feelings are undefined, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Modern AU, Murder, Okay i lied about the outsider POV some of this is Geralt POV, Sad Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Sort Of, again - sort of, but like, he his a low-simmering pot of sad soup, i forgot to tag that because it was a cover-up but, no beta we die like stregobor fucking should have, only a little bit, outsider pov, suicide is implied, that’s definitely a whump he just deadass. Does not have a good time at the end, there’s canonverse in there too, unorthodox use of that one magpie poem, vaguely unsubtle mysteries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25552183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsInMyDamnEyes/pseuds/StarsInMyDamnEyes
Summary: “Never pegged the White Wolf for a shitty poet before, had you?”“I can’t say that I had,” Bernard said, “but then, I never met him. What was this poem, anyhow?”The old man merely grinned at him - grinned properly, a toothy smile, revealing teeth that were eerily sharp and far too white, as he dipped his head in acknowledgement and left.Alternatively: It’s been quite a long damn time. Geralt likes to think he’s mellowed out, a little bit.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 42
Kudos: 84
Collections: The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge #005





	Seven for a Secret

**Author's Note:**

> my only regret is the quality of this fic

“You’re not gonna talk to anyone?”

The old man tilted his head up - he would, Bernard assumed, be looking at him behind his large sunglasses - and hummed, an almost infuriatingly noncommittal sound.

He was something of an oddity on their street - he was old, almost impossibly so, and yet not fragile-looking. Kirsty from number forty-seven had sworn she’d seen the old codger lifting weights in his back garden that Bernard’s own grand-nephew, an amateur weightlifter himself, would struggle with.

It wasn’t too big a surprise on its own, an old man lifting weights, but in this little suburb of the more middle-class part of Novigrad (and to think, that only a few decades ago, that would have been most of the prosperous city!), there was little to do and even less going on, and so the newcomer had caught the neighbourhood’s eye.

The old man from the charming little cottage at the end of the lane had lived there for less than a year, and Bernard was beginning to see the mystery that the more gossip-oriented of the community were always banging on about. His wrinkled skin was scarred, and one could hardly tell from a distance, what with how the shadows fell across his face... and, well, even Bernard could make out the muscle still held by his aged form.

Huh. And he’d thought Kirsty had been exaggerating.

A veteran, then, he must be - the big war with Redania had ended nigh seventy years ago, but this man looked old enough to be a centenarian, or approaching it. It made sense, why he was so notoriously tight-lipped if he was - nobody wanted to admit fighting on the losing side save for perhaps the most ardent of loyalists.

“I just think, you know,” Bernard continued, acutely aware that he’d stretched the silence too far, “that it’s a bit pointless to come to a neighbourhood barbecue and sit in the shadows the whole time, not saying a word to anyone.”

The old man - Bernard hadn’t even asked his name, gods, where were his manners? - hummed again, contemplative, before speaking.

“I like my privacy.”

“Be that as it may, this is a community gathering! Surely, you’d rather talk to someone, than sit it out in the shade?”

That gained Bernard a derisive snort. “Magpies.”

“I- I’m sorry?”

“Magpies. Your children are chasing them, don’t let them wander off too far.”

“Ah,” Bernard said, faltering. “Don’t worry about them. Izzy’s got her eye on them, she’s a responsible sort.”

“Having your niece play babysitter?”

“I give her pocket money for it. How many are there, anyways? Two for joy, I hope?”

It had meant to be a wry little jab, because children seldom chanted the little magpie poem anymore, at least that Bernard knew, but the old man just settled back against the tree and hummed more contemplatively, more deeply, than he’d hummed before - so low, it almost sounded like a growl.

“Bernard,” the old man said, once again turning his hidden gaze upon him, and suddenly Bernard felt so inexplicably small that he couldn’t help but shrink in on himself a little. “Would you like to hear a story?”

* * *

The funeral was a maudlin affair, as all funerals were. Jaskier played the lute, and sang, and Geralt was under no illusion that the bard was doing it for anything other than the coin waiting for him after the ceremony. It was all just pomp and circumstance, really - the village smithy’s strapping young son was dead, and none of the wailing or gossiping disguised as hushed mourning would do anything for him at this point.

Not that the death wasn’t entirely mundane - there was the whole matter of an otherwise completely healthy twenty-year-old young man quite suddenly dropping dead to consider, which in itself was rather unusual, but it didn’t stink of foul play and, perhaps more importantly, it wasn’t any of Geralt’s business.

They’d lingered far too long in this town. When Jaskier got paid, they’d move on, and Geralt would find a new contract.

The air of melancholy, he thought, as Jaskier’s low voice sang softly along to a mournful tune and the smithy sobbed over the grave of the last family he’d known, had settled heavy over the whole place, and it was smothering.

It would be best to saddle up Roach and leave before the sun rose.

* * *

“That’s not a story,” Bernard found himself complaining. “That’s just another witcher anecdote, everyone’s full of them.”

The old man raised an eyebrow behind his dark glasses. “Is that so?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful we’ve got such a complete collection of early mediaeval texts such as the bard Jaskier’s, but every vaguely historical story anyone’s ever written harkens back to the White Wolf.”

“Really,” the old man said, the corners of his chapped lips twitching up in amusement. “Can’t say I’ve much studied historical literature myself, but you seem passionate.”

Bernard groaned. “My sister, Katie, she got her degree in the field. Every time we met she’d rant on and on about the homogeneity of it all.”

“Picked it up, have you?”

“It seems so,” Bernard said. “My, ah, my apologies.”

“There’s more to the story,” the old man said, taking a sip from the coke he’d poured himself but not yet begun to drink. “It’s not just that - too short. But only if you don’t mind the homogeneity.”

“Not at all.”

The man sighed, and cast his gaze into the boughs of the old oak he leant against, and readied himself to speak again.

A magpie’s harsh call sounded from above.

* * *

“He’s dead, is the fucker! Come, celebrate, man, he’s dead!”

The drunkard leered at Geralt, showing off his greyed and missing teeth as he raised to toast... whoever knew what, before disappearing into the cheering crowd.

This was odd. The town had been deathly silent when Geralt had set out on his contract - a garkain, entirely not worth the price he had been offered - and yet now, it seemed that festivities had broken out... Impromptu, too, judging from the lack of decoration anywhere in the town.

 _He’s dead_.

Were the townsfolk celebrating a death?

Must have been. Else the drunk had just found himself in a very convenient place at a very convenient time to celebrate one specific death, and Geralt was inclined to believe that it was the former, if for no other reason than that the sheer amount of coincidence required for him to misunderstand the situation as a spontaneous party hosting a single, incredibly petty drunkard, was almost laughable.

Between this and the funeral in the last time, that was two deaths, and two very strange towns. Geralt had no fucking idea what kind of bad luck was following him around, and, as he made his way towards the town centre, he could only hope that the sudden festivities didn’t manage to inconvenience him out of his payment.

Or perhaps he could just turn a blind eye whilst Jaskier robbed the alderman, again. That was fine, too.

The festivities got louder and more intense as Geralt made his way through the town, and when he heard upbeat lute music coming from the town square, he felt the familiar twitch of unsurprised resignation at the back of his mind that he _always_ did when Jaskier did something stupid. Of course, he would be caught up in the whole debacle that was ongoing, of course - singing at a celebration for a man’s death was, after all, something so intrinsically Jaskier that he only hoped that he didn’t end up making a habit of it.

The ditty he was currently performing was clearly one of his own compositions, too, what with how fitting it was for the occasion. Evidently, the dead man was - because of course it was - the alderman, and furthermore, said alderman had also allegedly been a _vile old bastard with a smile full of worms_ , who had a reputed habit of _lying and cheating and fudging his terms_ \- at which point Geralt had, resignedly, begun to hope that Jaskier _had_ , in fact, robbed him, because there was no way he was getting coin from a dead man.

The rhyming, too, was too childish for Jaskier to have any real thought into it, which was usually indicative of his focus lying elsewhere, and not on his composing.

Geralt made his way into the clearing as inconspicuously as he could, hoping to catch Jaskier’s eye as the bard performed his unflattering song for the good people of the town, which he did, almost immediately - the bard had an almost uncanny ability to keep an eye on his surroundings - and shot Geralt a winning grin.

His coin purse, Geralt noted, looked far heavier than it should have.

* * *

A second magpie, having tired of the children that delighted so in chasing it around the field, had made its home in the oak tree alongside the first, and the old man stared at them with some intrigue, studying them, almost, with a quiet intensity that set Bernard on edge. He did begin to entertain the thought of excusing himself from his neighbour’s company and taking over the barbecue - ostensibly because Ian was the one currently grilling, and Ian had all of the culinary skill of an eel with no tastebuds - but something stopped him.

Curiosity, or pity, or whatever, Bernard simply sat in silence as the old man regarded the birds.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?”

The old man tilted his head slightly, signalling to Bernard that he’d heard him.

“Only, it’s one for sorrow, two for joy, and yet you’re incredibly maudlin.”

A frown twitched at the corners of his mouth, and Bernard was sure he’d said something wrong, misspoken, but he had no idea _what_.

So he continued. “Without wanting to interrupt your story, though, if we could tell a few jokes lighten the mood-”

A scoff.

“Feel free to laugh at me, at any rate,” Bernard continued. “I’ve got a tattoo on my leg that reads, _this is my first tattoo_ , which should be humiliating enough.”

“Get it whilst drunk?”

“I did indeed.”

“You’ve not picked up the pattern yet,” he told Bernard, with authority but no judgement in his tone. “Shame, but you’ll get it.”

“What pattern?”

The old man cast his eyes up into the boughs of the old oak tree once more, and Bernard followed his eyes.

“Like I said. You’ll get it.”

* * *

The Countess de Stael had not been a lovely woman, despite what Jaskier said about her, Geralt was sure. The bard could bleat her praises till the sun went down, and yet the scandal around her alleged drowning of her own daughter, to protest the fact that her sire was some nobody farmer from a nondescript village nearby, hardly reflected such praises. In fact, Geralt was sure that it did the exact _opposite_ of that - solidify the Countess as an incredible piece of shit amongst men.

Of course, nobody could _prove_ that the Countess had drowned her daughter - only that the two-year-old child, left alone with her, had been forcibly drowned in the quaint little pond in the garden, which was a story corroborated the by fact that all those that had borne witness to the scene spoke of a body battered, bruised, and broken.

It had been a crime of rage, and few people had the inclination to become so incensed at a toddler.

The Countess herself, it seemed, had been killed to avenge the girl, given that, only a few scant hours before Jaskier and Geralt actually met up in the town - Geralt, once again, after a contract, and Jaskier making his way south immediately after a bardic competition - the Countess herself had been murdered, too.

There was, Geralt thought, no question as to what the motive may have been. The pond-water in her lungs and vicious cuts and bruising on her body, mirrored what she’d (allegedly) done to her daughter, the (substantiated) vicious cruelty payback, to avenge the poor girl she’d (allegedly) drowned in an (alleged) intense fit of fury.

Jaskier blinked down at her, unrepentant, and Geralt once again wondered why they’d let him into the morgue with him.

“I dare say she looks taller lying down,” the bard sniped, glaring at the prone corpse before them.

“I thought you loved her.”

“I did, right up until I found out she’s a child-murderer. I mean, who does that? Who kills a kid? Assholes and thugs and violent bastards are one thing, but a _kid_...”

Geralt’s lips twitched. “You’d kill someone for being an asshole?”

“Depends on the type of asshole, really. I’m thinking more of the self-entitled prick who thinks themselves above everyone else on the basis of their various predicated traits. Still, thank god she left me. Can you imagine, keeping someone like that for a lover?”

Not really, actually, he couldn’t - but he didn’t exactly want to. Jaskier, on the other hand, didn’t have to imagine because he _had_ kept the Countess de Stael as a lover.

“Did you know,” Jaskier said, “the little girl’s name? I asked around.”

Geralt tilted his head, inviting Jaskier to speak.

“It was Agatha.”

The Countess’ body simply got ever-cooler on the table.

* * *

“Who killed her, then?”

The old man fixed him with another one of his unseen glares, and Bernard put his hands up in surrender.

He supposed that was the point, that eventually there’d be a common thread linking all the deaths together, that was just how the story was set up, but could he really be faulted for his curiosity? It would have made a perfect murder mystery on its own, that little story, with a finite amount of suspects and a strong motive - a motive that was weakened by tying the Countess’ murder to the other two nondescript, nameless murders that the old man had spoken of before hers.

Still, this wasn’t _his_ story.

As yet another burger was dropped onto the floor by a cussing Ian, hovering over the barbecue, and the birds in the tree continued their croaking and calling, Bernard simply settled back and listened as the old man continued his story.

* * *

The Viscount de Lettenhove had apparently finally kicked it, and Jaskier was downright jubilant. Word had reached him, by sheer coincidence, not long after left Kaer Morhen at the winter’s end, that the man had been found dead in his bed, but even the idle gossiping amongst the petty nobles too stingy to pay a witcher full-price to clear a nest of drowners - not like drowners were expensive - had not prepared him for Jaskier’s excess glee.

The Viscount de Lettenhove had been Jaskier’s father, he knew, and now he supposed that Jaskier was viscount himself, but the sheer joy Jaskier had been filled with at his father’s death was long-lasting and genuine enough for Geralt to be able to put two and two together and realise that the man had probably been something of a heinous piece of shit where Jaskier was concerned.

So, he did something very uncharacteristic of him.

He asked.

“What was he like?”

Jaskier blinked up at him. “What do you mean, what was he like? Tall, broad, relatively good-looking, much to both my luck and my disappointment, an utter prick-”

“What was he like. To you.”

“Ah.” Jaskier’s eyes fluttered half-closed, and a small, wan smile made its way onto his face. “Given the game away, have I?”

“You were far too happy at his death for him not have done something to wrong you.”

“Oh, fair enough, I suppose. But it wasn’t anything special, just- general shitty parent things.”

And that told Geralt that it _wasn’t_ , but Jaskier didn’t want to talk about it and far be it from him to pry.

If Jaskier ever wanted him to know what had happened, Geralt had no doubt that the information would be offered.

In the meantime... Well.

There was a reason Geralt never really talked about the Trials.

* * *

The rotten, decayed croaking of the magpies only grew louder as more of the little flock sought refuge from the antics of Bernard’s children - even Izzy had chided them for terrorising to poor birds, but they paid her no heed. The fact that they had chosen to settle in that particular oak tree, whose trunk the old man was leant against, was apparently very amusing to him, given the smile that had crept, seemingly unbidden, to his lips.

It was the quiet amusement of a man who liked to keep himself to himself, and Bernard could appreciate it. He himself was an individual of, he would say, an average amount of expressiveness and communication, whereas the old man was infinitely more withdrawn.

No doubt, the magpies amused him greatly, even if Bernard had no idea why.

He didn’t say anything, this time - it didn’t feel right. He simply raised his plastic cup to his lips and drank, the beer bitter and dull against his tongue. He should have, in retrospect, gotten a coke, or something... like the old man had.

Still, he simply sat, and waited for the old man to continue.

* * *

The bruxa - and Geralt was sure it was a bruxa, despite the human guise she’d died in - lay strewn on the altar in an ungainly manner, throat slit wide open, dried blood framing the shape of the wound, and a bloodied silver dagger lay in her hand.

He didn’t believe for one moment that she’d taken her own life - the wound was too straight to have been made by someone cutting towards themselves, those wounds were U-shaped in their nature, they curved. Someone else had killed the bruxa, and whoever it was had gone to great lengths to cover it up - admittedly, for good reason.

There was nothing about the bruxa that screamed ‘bruxa’, after all, and the old mistake of killing a monster in human form and being labelled a senseless murderer in return had been made too many times for anyone who knew what they were doing to fall into the trap.

This specific bruxa was likely the one responsible for the sporadic disappearances of the townsfolk- someone had gotten his quarry, it seemed, before he had. Judging from the date of the last disappearance, as well as the wound and the blood, she’d been dead for three days, possibly four if she was killed right after the last disappearance, but definitely more than two.

There was, at any rate, a note tucked into her breast, and Geralt reached out to take it and read it. Better be sure of what, exactly, was going on before reporting back to the mayor who had hired him.

It was a confession, in as much as it was also a suicide note - the killer had known what they were doing, it seemed. The note spoke, almost poetically, of the incandescent rage and injustice at the men of the world who would take advantage of her, spiralling into an insatiable desire for violence, an unstoppable, needless urge to _hurt_. It was an excellent forgery, both in contents and in appearance, and Geralt placed it carefully down on the altar away from the pool of blood the bruxa had left there, as he took note of all the sliver in the room.

There was the dagger, of course, but also a decorative sword on the wall, the candlesticks, a worn shield with a coat of arms chipping off...

This had been a trap, it seemed. Whoever had killed the bruxa - and, judging from the scent of the oil he caught from the weaponry, it had been a witcher, or at the very least an enthusiast - had prepared quite meticulously for her. Even as Geralt looked, he noticed that the decorative display on an anvil by the door had an empty wooden stand in the centre, just large enough for a seemingly-decorative dagger.

Clever.

Geralt cast one last eye around the room, to take note of anything he might have missed, and his eyes fell upon the forged note.

There was something so familiar hidden in the shape of the handwriting.

* * *

The old man took a long sip of his coke, and tapped his finger against the side of the cup.

Bernard stared at him, slightly, intrigued by his subtle shift in composure, before speaking. “Should I get you a refill?”

The smile he received in answer was tight around the edges. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

* * *

It had been about the gold.

Geralt wasn’t sure why he was surprised.

It wasn’t unexpected, per se, but it was an incredibly frustrating realisation to have, that he was risking his life for someone else’s riches, _again_. As if he all he was good for was being some uppity little treasure-hunter’s errand boy. The gash in his abdomen throbbed. Any deeper, and he’d have fallen unconscious, and he knew that the slimy little eel who’d hired him would take the ability to leave him behind as an added bonus, and not a looming failure.

He strode into the room he’d paid for, splitting his meagre coin with Jaskier - all that gold, and the man couldn’t even be bothered to give him enough for his own room - expecting to see the bard, lounging around, perhaps, composing.

But the room was empty.

Geralt hissed, and turned around and left. There was, after all, usually only one reason Jaskier disappeared on him - he was out causing trouble.

That, in this situation particularly, did not go well, given that there was an absolute certainty about the situation that Jaskier was threatening the man who’d employed Geralt (in a very liberal sense of the term ‘employ’, given the mere pennies he’d been paid) to escort him to find his damn gold. The irony of that.

Jaskier’s scent hung lightly on the air, already dissipating enough that Geralt was having trouble tracking it - when had he stopped wearing those heavy colognes, again? But it was enough, enough to lead him through the streets and the back-alleys to the house... to the house of the man who had contracted him.

A scream rang out, and Geralt _ran_ , burst right through the fucking door, slamming it off of its hinges, at the sound of a scream that wasn’t Jaskier’s.

The sound of blood hit him almost immediately, and Geralt followed it, hearing a crash and the thrum of a bladed weapon through the air, the sound of it cutting skin, then the horrid yet familiar noise of a stab with a dagger, and Geralt turned a corner into the room to see Jaskier, with a dagger far too deep in his ribs for Geralt to hope, one hand around a rapier than had slit the gold-seeker’s throat, the other clutching the man’s makeshift ruff with an almost-dead-man’s grip.

Deep, icy blue eyes met Geralt’s and Jaskier tried his level best to grin.

“Surprise?”

“You’re dying.”

And numbly, it began to register. Jaskier was _dying_. Jaskier was going to be _dead_.

“Well-“ Jaskier staggered away from the corpse of the man who’d killed him, stumbling and falling, and Geralt moved, quick as a dart through the air, to catch him. “Of course I’m- I’m _dying_ , I got stabbed in the chest. A fit- a fitting end, I suppose, for a coward like me.”

Geralt’s heart ached at that. “You’re no coward. You’re the bravest man I’ve ever met.”

“Don’t try to spare my feelings, Geralt, I- I’m not. I’m a petty murderer, taking- taking revenge for shit that’s not... It’s disproportionate. Not exactly the mark- the mark of a hero.”

“Jaskier. Listen to me. You’re not a bad person.”

“You can’t-” Jaskier coughed, blood dribbling out of his mouth like the djinn so many years ago, except that this time there wasn’t anything Geralt could do but _hold_ him. “You can’t say that. I killed people. I poi- I poisoned that blacksmith’s son because he threatened me... Threatened me with... something.”

“Jaskier-”

“And the alderman, and the bl- the bloody Countess de Stael.” Jaskier’s normally smooth and lilting voice was hoarse, so hoarse. “And m’father, and that fucking vampire lady, and...”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said again, and pulled him into a hug.

“Geralt, Geralt, please don’t-”

“Don’t what?”

“Please don’t remember me like this. Please don’t... tell the world that I’m. I’m just... a common murderer. I don’t want to- to be remembered... that way. Please.”

“I won’t,” Geralt said, the words thick in his mouth. “I’ll remember you as you were. Bright and cunning and... and musical and good. And so will the rest of the world.”

“Is that- Is that a compliment... from G- from Geralt of Rivia? I sh- should die more often if... if that’s... if that’s all it takes to get- get you to be nice to me.”

“Jaskier.”

“Wr- write me a nice... poem for my eulogy, will you? Something poetic- and mysterious.”

“I will.”

“Thank you... Geralt.”

And the witcher held the bard until the wheezing, rattling breaths in his throat petered out into nothing, and for a long, long time after that.

* * *

The silence stretched for a while after the old man fell silent, as he finished draining his cup and stood.

“That’s what happened to the bard Jaskier, in this story?”

The man raised an eyebrow. “I doubt Geralt of Rivia would have wanted his name to be tarnished. For all his failings, Jaskier was still a good man at heart. Thank you, for the drink and the company.”

“Not a problem. Thank you, in fact, for the story.”

“Never pegged the White Wolf for a shitty poet before, had you?”

“I can’t say that I had,” Bernard said, “but then, I never met him. What was this poem, anyhow?”

The old man merely grinned at him - grinned properly, a toothy smile, revealing teeth that were eerily sharp and far too white, as he dipped his head in acknowledgement and left.

And Bernard couldn’t be sure, but he swore that he caught a glimpse of yellow under the sunglasses as he turned.

* * *

_One for sorrow,  
Two for joy,  
Three for a girl,  
And four for a boy,  
Five for silver  
Six for gold  
And seven for a secret,  
Never to be told._

**Author's Note:**

> look this poem is so undeniably about murder to begin with. The secret? That’s murder. “It’s a method of soothsaying via magpie flocks” is a lie spread by the murderer to cover it up.
> 
> Edit: i fixed the embarrassing amount of typos and grammatical errors in the fix. *sighs and looks wistfully to the sky* maybe one day autocorrect will stop fixing what ain't broke, and maybe one day i'll learn how to write.


End file.
